Netflix, the U.S. film and TV Internet streaming company, will launch its service in Argentina on Wednesday.

The company will charge 39 pesos (about $9.28) a month for unlimited streaming.

Netflix launched its first Latin American service in Brazil on Monday and plans to expand rapidly throughout the region. For more details, click on the company’s official press release here or on Netflix’s blog here.

It’s unclear how much the local service will mirror Netflix in the U.S. Will the same films and TV shows be available or will intellectual property and distribution rights change the online library?

Will TV shows and movies be dubbed or have subtitles or some mix of the two? Will it be possible to view the streaming in HD? Separately, how will Argentina’s Internet service providers and their relatively slow local bandwidth offerings stand up?

Netflix officials have been in the region studying its Internet infrastructure and are confident the service will work well. Rochelle King, Netflix VP of User Experience and Design, said the following in a blog post:

“We’ve licensed thousands and thousands of hours of feature films, classic favorites, gripping telenovelas, documentaries and kids shows we know you’ll enjoy. We’ve been testing and figuring out the right internet architecture to make sure the quality and speed of the Netflix streaming experience is the best it can be. And we’ve been training people locally to deliver the excellent customer support Netflix is known for in the U.S. and Canada.”

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings will be in Buenos Aires on Wednesday to formally launch the service. I’ll be at his press conference. What would you ask him?

Please tell him that we want original audio with optional subtitles —- not dubbed movies which are cinematic heresy! Based on the blog comments I see from Brazil they have already made this error. Cinephiles (even non-English speaking ones) will never accept that.

Sam is right. The Argentine market clearly has an aversion to dubbing. 90% of all English speaking films in theaters here are not dubbed unless if its a cartoon for kids. Also, it would be interesting to hear how he plans to compete with Cuevana.

Exactly… I have access to a US Netflix account, which I can stream here using an IP blocker. But since I discovered Cuevana, I never log into Netflix anymore. Cuevana is faster and offers more. I would say that the experience of using the Argentine version of Netflix will be faster than accessing the US version from Buenos Aires. But even when I am in the states, Cuevana is still faster and offers better quality than Netflix. Whatever streaming technology is used by Cuevana seems to be much better. Honestly I cannot imagine anyone in Argentina paying for Netflix when there are so many more alternatives.

Don’t discount the idea that Netflix already has a plan to kill off Cuevana. If not, I agree that Cuevana is the superior option. I have just logged in to my new Netflix Argentina account and see a pathetic one page of “classic” movies available. I was hoping for hundreds of old studio classics —- something Cuevana doesn’t do.

UPDATE: I just tried to watch my first movie, “Harold and Maude” and I can report my total disgust when I realized it’s available only in DUBBED form — yuck! I will be canceling my subscription based solely on this factor. I would LOVE to hear Mr. Hastings response to this.

UPDATE 2: I am somewhat happy to report that I have found other movies which are equipped with audio channel as well as subtitle options. However there seems to be no way to identify which ones have this option —- this should be addressed. My recommendation is that ONLY children’s programming be offered in dubbed format. I am sure Netflix doesn’t want all of Latin America to think it views them as children.

I had a similar issue. First thing I tried, was to start the show Californication… only available dubbed.

My second try, Mad Men, was only available in English with subtitles. So I guess instead, that will be the first show I go through.

It feels like it’s better, audio-wise, to be able to go through the PS3, but the PS3 app has several issues browsing… it’s almost better to browse on the computer and then search.

The launch library isn’t great, but it’s the multiple ways to watch it that gives it a huge leg up on Cuevana. I don’t want to just watch it on my computer. I want to watch it on my TV, on my phone (I’m sure the iPhone app will be unlocked soon), etc.